Roam: Chapter 04
Chapter 4 Characters * [[2664 Ife Tusk|'General Ife Tusk']] * [[1899 Odd Otibryal Juctor Qualens|'Odd Otibryal Juctor Qualens']] * Flashy Donimal Juctor Qualens, O. * Ormanal Juctor-Ormanal Candoam, O. * Constrincal Qualens Sarevir, O. * Fawning Parytal Sarevir Qualens, O. * Coughy Pagnal Juctor, C. * Vain Prellal Qualens Juctor, C. * Pagnal Qualens, O. * Oba Tusk * Cacy Qualens Locations * Gaegnian Well * Right Lifts of Roam Contents Ife Tusk Ife’s strange young guide was still sulking about his name when their donkeys passed into the shadow of an outcrop dotted with the carved stone facades of hundreds of tombs dating back for who knew how long. Ife noticed one with an adornment of a man’s arm reaching diagonally down to a tomb below, presumably that of a child of the occupant. Across the world, people found ways to preserve their dead, and the links between family, safe from the uncaring destruction of World-Beasts. No doubt that these vertical tombs, beyond the breath-taking spectacle of their presentation, indicated the proximity of a World-Well, or at least a long-established route. The donkeys weren’t climbing any longer; the path wound through a narrow crack in the cliffside, pocked grey stone towering to each side, forcing them to push to one side to overtake the intrepid pedestrians or allow them to pass. Ife reckoned that they had climbed about a third of a Roaman mile above the harbour, but was not as good at judging vertical distances as over flats, nor entirely confident that he had mastered Roaman units. The measure of a thousand marched paces to one mile was simple enough, but – The sides of the narrow gorge suddenly peeled back, and Ife’s heart froze, grasped tightly by awe, terror and rage. A plateau stretched out ahead and below of them of squared off fields in summer shades of yellow-browns and dry greens. Away to the left, northwards, glittered a large lake extending to the shelf of mountains at the horizon, its shores dotted by the red and white glints of houses clustered into fishing villages. Closer, a ring of wooden walls and towers around the unmistakeable cyan-tinted steam of a World-Well; the Roaman soldiers manning its defences and patrolling around it in tight formation seemed at this distances like the little wind-up toys that his father had given to him and his brothers, a gift from Inachiron, and had joked with them that he had wished for life-size soldiers as tireless and obedient as those Kyraspan curiosities. The roads from the lake, the Well, from where they stood, and the gentler coastal road reaching the plateau away to their right were choked with traffic, nearly all headed southwards to the impossible sight that had overthrown Ife’s senses: Roam. Easily two-thirds of a mile high at the shoulder, three across and perhaps half again as long, the World-Beast defied anticipation. Its four brown, stone legs were squat and splayed out from its body as if the Beast itself were overcome by the improbability of its dimensions, an impression reinforced by the dishevelled mess of wooden shanties oozing from its shadowy underside, dripping ropes to the ground, presumably the notorious Underbelly. The top side was largely carpeted in ugly red brick, but these followed the regular humps of its back, each – well, most – topped by some magnificent travertine construct, gleaming pure pink-white in the sunlight where they rose above the trails of dark smoke from chimneys and forges, painted in the Familial colours of the owner of that palace. The scale of the thing evaded comprehension, even as Ife looked directly at it. He tried to fix a comparison from the size of the yellow, stone walls ringing the city on its back, or the enormous crowds dutifully processing in its shadow, fed by the roads packed to the horizon in every dimension, or from the lifts ascending from jetties at its sides. To the front of the city, the Beast’s head rose higher still, at least a mile up at its peak. The neck was thick and ridged like a mane, with tall, proud ears and dark, forward-facing caverns like eyes. Its long face curved down into a vicious, hooked point – perhaps the weapon it had used to fell Adesican-Beast, and all the other rivals it had once had in Scalify. At its rear, a thick, rounded tail promontory was held high, counterbalancing the weight of that head. Ife traced his eyes back along the path that the World-Beast had taken, its enormous footprints – the fronts raked up by huge claws – marring the landscape back to the World-Well and north past the lake. Dots of men crawled over the turned-up earth, scavenging or prospecting. Ife’s trained eye could pick out the scars on the landscape of previous transits of this Beast in previous years: the brighter patches of vegetation that had reclaimed those footprints once the scroungers had moved on. The footprints were not the only sign of the Beast’s passage: rubbish, predominantly clay pots used to import food and wine, littered the path, also picked at by the desperate and optimistic. Ife allowed his eyes to fix on one of the gigantic depressions caused by the ceaseless march of Roam-Beast, tracing the outline of it until his eyes began to water. His father had spent his last moments looking up at the slow eclipse of those feet, chained and helpless, before being pulverised into the Scalifian dirt by the weight of a heartless, walking mountain, and the heartless city riding atop it. Ife had been a soldier long enough to know that no man truly faced death without fear, and felt his lip twitch towards a snarl at the cruelty of Roam. “General Tusk?” called Otibryal, who had ridden ahead down the path towards a small village, understandably not stopped in his tracks by the sight of his home city. “How far does it travel in a day?” Ife asked, kicking his donkey back into motion. “Five miles, give or take,” Otibryal said, looking across the plateau to the World-Beast. “How about Naechis?” “I don’t know,” Ife admitted. They were approaching a stable, where Ife presumed they would trade in these donkeys for horses to close the remaining miles to Roam. “I haven’t been to Naechis since I was a child. Lots has changed since then.” “But you remember seeing World-Beasts, right?” Otibryal dismounted clumsily, taking his donkey’s reins in one hand. “Nothing like Roam,” Ife said as he followed suit. “You do know that it is the largest in the world now, right?” Achaegis was its only rival in all history, and likely more legend than fact from all those centuries ago. “Not Samyrt?” “Once, perhaps,” Ife said. He had spent time there. “But Samyrt-Beast lay down in the Hapiter Strait long ago; it doesn’t patrol Samyrt any more. The great canals that provide the grain that feed your Republic are fed from the vent waters flowing from its pyramids. If Samyrt ever stands up…” “We’ll all starve?” “Not all of you,” Ife shook his head. “I’m sure the Familials will be fine, until the mobs of the Underbelly break down the gates of their palaces and your granaries. Or your army revolts.” “I’m sure we could find a solution,” Otibryal frowned. “Otherwise, we are just clients of Samyrt. Perhaps such an upheaval would force the Republic to be more even-handed to Naechis?” “Perhaps,” Ife said, though he had his doubts. He waited as Otibryal negotiated their change of mounts. He watched the World-Beast in the distance, looking up at its underside more now from this vantage point. From what he could remember, Naechis was sleeker, perhaps as tall as Roam’s shoulder at its peak, but far less massive – and less populous. Its legs were underneath its body rather than bent out to the sides, perhaps granting it greater agility, though such comparisons were difficult to make given the almost imperceptibly slow pace at which the living mountains moved. And the long, low-sweeping horns of Naechis would grant it greater range were they ever to clash, as long as it could avoid the stronger blows of this unparalleled Beast and its vicious beak. Without a World-Beast in support, assaulting Roam would be an impossible task, as would besieging it, with the whole of Scalify supporting it as the besiegers would be forced to blockade it while marching five miles a day in hostile and unfamiliar territory. The desires and oaths of his father now seemed quite fantastic: Roam was long established as the pre-eminent power in the world, unyielding and impregnable. Ife’s ears were well attuned to the sound of a galloping horse, and he tilted his head to pinpoint the source of this particular one. A man, the crowd along the road ahead hurriedly parting to allow him through, driving his horse with aplomb and unwavering confidence. His armour was trimmed in brilliant orange, and his auburn curls bounced behind his unhelmeted ears as he fixed Tusk in his sights and drew his sword. Ife drew his in response without hesitation, its familiar weight comforting in his hand. Those nearby who noticed the imminent, unprovoked confrontation began to scatter. Ife considered his options, unmounted and armed only with a short sword against a charging cavalryman. His primary advantage was manoeuvrability – horses could not turn as tightly as men, particularly at the breakneck speed of this cocky assailant, and he could fit into confined spaces such as the rough houses nearby, which could force the other man to dismount, evening the odds or perhaps swinging them into Ife’s favour given his talent and the Crylaltian style of long cavalry sword that the rider was wielding. Ife glanced around for the best option, his mind running on honed instinct. He made his decision and was about to begin moving, all of these thoughts having occurred in an instant, when the rider began to pull back on his reins, his horse’s hooves scrabbling to abort the impending collision with Ife, throwing up a thick cloud of red dust that Ife winced through, the scrape of hooves and snorting outmatched only be the volume of his thumping heart as he was blinded. He felt wet, hot breath wash over his face, the explosive blast of both straining nostrils inches from his face as the air cleared. The Roaman Officer was looking down at him, his sword readied but not wielded. Ife looked up at him defiantly; if he had had any intention of harming him, he would already have done so. Any true threat was already gone; all that remained was bluster, even if it had been bluster backed up by skilled riding. “May your gods smile upon this meeting,” Ife offered, a traditional Roaman greeting. “Quiet,” the rider replied tetchily, not the traditional response. “You are Ife Tusk?” He pronounced Ife aye-f rather than ee-fay, as if he had only seen the name written, not said. “Which is it?” Ife smirked. This young man had not thought his strategy through, particularly the outcome where Ife refused to be intimidated by him. “Quiet, or…?” “Don?” came Otibryal’s voice from the stable in Ife’s peripheral vision. Ife was not going to look away from “Don’s” eyes first, however, and the Officer seemed of a similar inclination. “Oti,” Don said with a mixture of anger and resignation, with just a hint of admiration. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time.” “What are you doing here?” Otibryal approached the two of them, still locked at the eyes. “Why have you drawn swords?” “I’m protecting you,” Don said. “I mean the boy no harm,” Ife said firmly. “No more harm than you mean for all Roam, I suppose,” Don said, his hand tensing on the grip of his cavalry sword. “But I’m not protecting him from you. I’m protecting him from himself – and from our father.” This was clearly addressed to Otibryal, though Don’s eyes stayed forward. “Fine. Then can we all please put the swords away and stop eye-fucking each other?” Otibryal begged. “What the fuck were you thinking, Oti?” said Don – Flashy Donimal, Ife surmised. He sounded genuinely hurt, worried for his brother. Ife found it hard to believe from his red-brown hair and turned-up nose that the two men shared a father. “You kidnapped a Naechisian general; you’ve caused a diplomatic incident with our greatest enemy.” “The boy did nothing of the sort,” Ife said. “Quiet,” Don’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about you.” “It evidently is,” Ife allowed himself a dismissive snort. “Quiet,” Don repeated. “Don, you’re the one making this an incident,” Otibryal said, reaching out a hand towards Don’s reins. “Back off, Oti,” Don warned. “You have no idea how lucky you are that I found you before Father did. He was seriously talking about honour killings.” “Which I’m sure we can both agree would be an overreaction,” Otibryal said. “As would the use of a sword at this point. So why don’t we both put them away, on the count of three?” “I’m not disarming myself in the presence of a man who has sworn to bring about the fall of Roam,” Don’s eyes flashed at Ife’s. “I am an Officer of the Republic.” “Don, use your brain,” Otibryal begged. “Oti, I love you, but you really need to back off now.” “What’s your plan here, exactly?” Otibryal asked. “Are you going to kill Ife Tusk?” “What was your plan, Oti? Did you think nobody would notice that his ship arrived but that he had disappeared? Or that he had appeared on Roam magically?” “What does it matter how he gets to Roam?” Otibryal asked, his own temper flaring. “If anyone had done any preparation at all, they would have learned that he hates diplomatic formalities.” “What he likes isn’t the point, Oti.” “Evidently,” Ife said, quite enjoying this absurdity now. “Quiet.” “No,” Ife shook his head. “That’s enough now, boy. You’ve had your fun playing Officer.” He broke off their mutual stare, turning his back on the sword and facing Otibryal. The boy’s eyes were looking over his shoulder at whatever Don was doing, which would give Ife ample warning if he were about to attempt something flashy. “Do we have horses, Oti?” He nodded wordlessly, gesturing to two healthy geldings, saddled in the Roaman style. “Shall we?” Ife strode towards the larger, kicking up and over its back with the assurance of having mounted almost every day since he could reach reins. He usually rode without a saddle like his Mughannean ancestors, but wasn’t in a mood to quibble. He straightened up to face Flashy Donimal, who was seething but frozen. Ife nodded Otibryal towards the other horse. “Your concern for your brother is admirable, Flashy Donimal Juctor Qualens, Scion of Juctor and Officer of Roam,” Ife said by way of conciliation, seeing no reason to continue antagonising the young man. “I hope that my older brother is as protective towards me.” “You would have found out, Ife Tusk –” “''Ee-fay''!” corrected Otibryal as he clambered onto his mount. Donimal gave Otibryal a look before continuing. “My apologies, Ife Tusk, General of the Tusk Army of Naechis, son of the Black Wolf of Crylalt, sworn enemy of Roam.” Otibryal gave Don a look right back, his straight nose wrinkling up with disdain for the baiting, which Ife found quite amusing. “You would have found out had Oti not waylaid you, as Oba was in fact part of the official welcoming party, along with his husband, wife, and father-in-law, among others.” The news quite affected Ife, though his face remained impassive. His brother had been taken with his father those twenty years ago, and Ife had not had any contact with him since, only receiving occasional wisps of news regarding his progress here, a prisoner on that hulking monster, another glimpse of which traced blades down the nerves of his neck. They had been boys, playing picket scouts in the heartless Interior of Crylalt, oblivious to the possibility that they could lose that war, and to the agonies that their father suffered in his war councils, abandoned by the politicians in distant Naechis. Undefeated. Betrayed. And now his father was dead, and his brother was nearby, not yet condensed back into a person: a stranger, with a strange wife and a stranger husband, and children who grew up as Roamans. It irked Ife to think that he had been slightly relieved to find Otibryal awaiting his arrival rather than Oba. More than any Roaman, he feared what his brother had become, and what it might mean. The three of them started riding down the crowded road that Don had galloped up, the bemused pedestrians that had sought cover from the charging Officer backing away once again to let them pass at a trot. Otibryal was a visibly uneasy rider. If he hadn’t admitted his lack of military experience, Ife would have known from the scratches on the boy’s legs from the lack of fine control of his mount around the prickly plants on the ride up, and how he now held one rein in each hand as if afraid he might fall off at any moment. He wasn’t terrified like a complete beginner, but he definitely had not spent years in the saddle. Meanwhile, Donimal was a natural, displaying a grace that Ife reckoned could rival his own, even in – perhaps especially in – these basic skills. Ife hoped to see him ride in anger again. The huge foot of Roam-Beast had progressed only a little towards the ground to complete this gradual step in its annual tour of Scalify. As they approached, its scale continued to defy Ife’s comprehension, constantly inventing new tricks to unnerve him: he watched a flock of birds, twisting like waves of viscous smoke, in the shadows beneath the Underbelly take roost in the invisible cracks of one of its lower legs. The Beast-chasing pedestrians and waggoneers around them were inured to their objective’s majesties, instead turning their invariably sun-beaten and diverse faces up to scrutinise these impetuous queue-jumpers while their oxen, mules, and draft-horses blinked glumly down at the baked summer dirt. Ife wondered what mark-up these traders could get from Roam to make sitting in these endless jams profitable. One stretch of road was filled with slaves tied together in a great shuffling chain; Ife reckoned them to be Feors from their imposing height and pale flowing hair and the beards of the men, as well as the intractable resistance in the blue eyes of a young, white-skinned girl who pouted up at him. She would have to learn, or learn what it meant not to. There had to be nearly a hundred of them, men, women and children, a whole village by Ife’s informed reckoning. It seemed that there was certainly something to the rumours of Curly Coltal Candoam’s successes to the north of Scrutany, which had come to Ife Tusk through his own Feor informers and captives on the Samyrtian border, as well as the Roaman Governor’s magnificently self-serving commentaries on his campaigns, some of which had proliferated well beyond the edges of the Republic as far as the camps of Ife’s exiled army, and further. Ife’s guardians had been partaking in some familiar, wordless, fraternal contest since he had begun to ride ahead. Now, as Roam began to be more above them than ahead of them, Ife thought it best to break their deadlock for them. “So, what is the plan?” he asked. “If we want me to endure an official diplomatic welcome but don’t want to see Otibryal ritually murdered, that is?” “Oti goes up ahead, alone,” said Don, who had clearly been considering the same question for some time. Otibryal was more distracted by a beleaguered tortoise which some children had found and were poking with sticks by the side of the road. His hands moved with his head, sending mixed messages to his horse, which snorted in frustration; Otibryal imitated the snort like a child as an apology to the animal, patting its neck. Odd indeed. “Ormanal Juctor-Ormanal is Captain of the Right Lifts today, and will let him cut ahead of the queue without much cajoling if he thinks it will buy him Father’s favour. You and I will stay down here and wait for the rest of the welcoming party to make it back from Gaegny – your brother’s father-in-law Vain Prellal is riding with them, so they’ll be taking their time up the coastal road due to his ‘saddle sores’,” Don made a conspiratorial and obscene gesture to the ring around his own anus. Ife hoped he meant haemorrhoids. “We diffuse the whole misunderstanding, and Oti hides until he is sure that our father’s rage has subsided.” “He’ll want to talk to Ife in the baths,” Otibryal nodded along with his brother’s plan. “All foreign visitors to Roam have to cleanse themselves in the lower baths before ascending to the Upper City,” he explained to Ife’s raised eyebrow. “It’s supposed to stop the spread of disease, though most merchants bribe their way out of it these days.” “So I get to enjoy all the perks of the official reception as well as this unorthodox one?” Ife asked wryly. He knew that he was doomed to suffer politicians sooner or later, but had quite enjoyed this farce while it had lasted. He was watching the rope lifts hanging ahead and above them off the side of the Beast, surely driven by legions of slaves, hauling up (and letting down) platforms of people and cargo – and soldiers on the military lifts at the front – to the precarious wooden platform high above them. He couldn’t believe the ramshackle nature of it all; Naechis had its gleaming marble liftports off each flank, leaving no visitor in doubt as to the glory of the city they sought to enter. This was chaos, barely contained by the armoured huddles of soldiers bustling around to arbitrarily dish out moments of obedience. To their left the desperate rope ladders of the (entirely illegal and disowned) Underbelly teemed with a dizzying mixture of climbers-up and -down. How had Naechis, with all its discipline and clarity, lost to this shambles? Flash Donimal Juctor Qualens The Juctor-Ormanal branch was over a hundred years old, from a triumph for Vicious Ormanal Juctor-Ormanal Panth over the iniquitous Fuscrite during the short-lived First Fuscrite War. Vicious Ormanal had in fact almost lost the battle, having led his legions into a trap in the labyrinthine mountains of Fuscry, but the heroics of Tantol Osty as his cavalry commander, legendarily outflanking the Fuscrites by leading his detachment up and over a seemingly insurmountably mountain now named in his honour. The past century had not provided further glories to the Juctor-Ormanals, who still hewed close to their parent family for patronage. Don’s fellow Officer, Ormanal Juctor-Ormanal Candoam, or Orm, was a year younger than Don and only just serving his first year in an official capacity, the son of Machyal Juctor-Ormanal Candoam, the serving Marshal of the Outer Walls high above on Roam, and Fussy Tantanal Candoam Barbar, who was away serving as the Captain of the Tauson Well in Further Inachria, through their wife Brillas Voriel. Don couldn’t recall whether Orm he was the great- or the great-great-grandson of Vicious Ormanal, if he had ever been told. Regardless, he had a heavy brow, as if constantly troubled by being constantly troubled, but was always kind to Don, carrying the weight of his branch’s obscurity with good nature and an appreciation of the small shortcuts that ambition required. Don watched Oti’s pout rise out of view on the lift platform, keeping the creaking wooden crate in sight until his neck hurt, suspicious beyond sense that his brother might engineer some new disobedience. Don’s half-son Caiacal, and his own twins Latavy and Degnal, took up less of his energy, and they weren’t yet able to form a sentence between them. Perhaps that was why. The moments when Don and Oti’s exasperated father, preoccupied by the running of the Republic, despaired that he should have beaten Oti more tore Don up inside: Oti had gotten away with much more than Don ever had, actively misbehaving against his better nature while Don constantly struggled to be good, compromised by his temper, but even at times like these, when Don could still quite easily backhand the unrepentant pout off Oti’s face, he found himself wanting to be his shield. Part of Don knew that Oti just needed time to find himself, and his place on the world – on Roam – a sentiment echoed often by their mother. He had so many talents – for oratory and dispute resolution, for music, arts and history both Roaman and foreign – that Don couldn’t hope to match, but lacked the motivation to apply them as he could, as Don did, for Roam and the Juctor family, and their legacy. Even if it took a lifetime, Don would protect his infuriating, ungrateful little brother, because of the sliver of a chance that his greatness would blossom one day, and would be worth the trouble he was about to deflect towards himself. Satisfied that Oti was indeed gone, Don gave Ormanal a firm nod of gratitude and steered his horse back over to Tusk, who was running his eyes over the underside of Roam-Beast, probably working out how he might invade and destroy the city. Word had spread that the large-framed, dark-skinned foreigner was the son of Osa Tusk, and it showed on the faces of the soldiers patrolling the base of Roam, scowling at this avowed enemy sitting proudly atop a horse, merrily ignoring their spite. Some men even shouted jeers at the “''Black Pup''” or “''Chissie scum''”; the particularly unwise spread some of their ire to Don for following orders and waiting alongside their diplomatically invited guest, though they had better sense than to actually voice their sedition against an Officer of the Republic. Don was quite happy to sit in silence with Tusk, who seemed to have a general’s instinct only to talk when he needed to ask something or tell something. The general took a swig of water from a pouch, not offering Don any – not that he would have been foolish enough to take it. They were a little ahead of the lifts in a fallow field, out of the way of the eternal crowds in Roam’s wake, their unfussy steeds angled forwards towards the late afternoon sun. The world smelled like baked red earth. Don kept his eye out for the arrival of the welcome party with whom he had ridden excruciatingly slowly down to Gaegny, down beyond the rocky ridges now behind them to the right, to the north. Tusk was squinting at the tents pointing out of the crowds of Beast-chasers – Don saw no reason to inform him that they served as ground-level markets for traders too impatient, poor or poorly connected to make the trip up to Roam, particularly those transporting livestock which were not welcome upside (alive, at least) – when an eruption of trumpets from the front-left leg, a good three miles away, grabbed his attention, answered in turn by lower pitched blasts from around the World-Beast, and the muted chiming of bells from the city a mile above them. “It’s not for us,” Don said, though Tusk was making a show of not asking. “Front-left leg just touched down, so a new hour has started, by the Bestial Calendar” “I know,” Tusk said. “I too come from a great city, Officer Donimal, and the ways of Roam are not as innovative as you might imagine.” “That would certainly be more convincing if you hadn’t spent the whole hour with your eyes bulging out your head, General Tusk.” “I suppose your greatest innovation is the Underbelly,” Tusk said, ignoring the jibe. “Although I am given to understand that Roam disavows this… I don’t really know the Roaman word for it. Triumph has a very specific meaning for you, doesn’t it?” He gestured with precise vagueness at the parasitic sprawl above them, the only Roam so many would ever see. “It does,” Don said. “They are the highest public honour, and remembered fondly for generations. Moody Machyal’s triumph for defeating Naechis ended with the execution of your father.” “Indeed it did,” Tusk said, his face impressively unperturbed. He cast his eyes up again over Roam-Beast’s underside. “Although that Triumph was two years later than the defeat of Naechis, preceded by an unprecedented civil war which tore your Republic asunder and cost the lives of thousands of Roamans at their brothers’ hands, and followed by an unprecedented period of tyranny and political chaos under Moody Machyal which tore your Republic asunder and cost the lives of thousands of Roamans and so on.” Tusk turned to face Don, the deep-rooted hatred of Roam crystallised in his pale eyes, his mouth a thin smile. “So perhaps that Triumph was not the highest point in Roam’s history, and the veneration of a vicious tyrant, and the senseless execution of my surrendered father for political profit – an act which twenty years later has your soldiers spitting bluster at me out of fear of the vengeance I might wreak upon you even as I sit calmly here in your shadow – perhaps these were mistakes, and are not public honours to be echoed down through the whispering halls of history. Perhaps. What do I know? I don’t even know about the Underbelly, which is why I asked you an honest question, and foolishly expected the courtesy of an honest answer rather than mindless antagonism. Your renegade little brother and his diplomatic cack-handedness at least yielded that, whereas your attitude, Donimal, makes me wonder whether my father’s oaths are more worthwhile than continued peace between our peace-loving peoples.” “So, the stories are true?” Don nodded. “You swore to destroy Roam.” “My father did,” Tusk said, his eyes unfocussing as they looked at the past. “And now I am here to reaffirm peace with it. We are not just ourselves, but our circumstances too, young Don. When the world changes, we have to change with it, else the world leaves us behind. That war is long over. My father is long dead. What use are oaths by dead men but chains? I would ask you to join me in making the best of this world that we live in now, and not hate me for the boy that I was, whose father said some words that I never truly understood, and discover now. Can you please do that for me?” Don knew that there was sense in the older man’s words, but all he could hear was his heart thumping in his own ears, his temper flaring, daring him to act on his instincts and strike down this snake-tongued enemy who would destroy Don’s world and his family. He found himself, somehow, wishing that Oti were still here, who could help him think through his tempers – to channel the good instincts from the bad. What should he do? His dilemma was not so much ameliorated as diverted by the approach of two riders around Don’s age: the one armoured in green and shining gold, the other in blood red and muted browns. They were two of the three Officers with whom Don had ridden down to Gaegny, and seem as displeased to see him as he did to see them. “Don, I see that you have found our elusive general,” the older in green said, smirking uncontrollably. “I knew that we might find a use for you one of these years.” “I see that you have lost your obtrusive grandfather,” Don countered, hoping that ‘obtrusive’ worked as an insult as much as a quickly thought-up rhyme. “Well done, Strinc, your father will be so happy.” “Cute, but it was your father who sent us ahead. He would have had Roam-Beast itself enlisted in a search party before nightfall, so shaken is he by this little misunderstanding. Are you going to introduce us to the good general, or is he doomed to subsist solely on your pleasantries?” Don looked over at Tusk, whose face was soft again, the corner of his mouth turned up in an almost imperceptible, infuriating smile, evidently pleased that their previous conversation had been interrupted by a flanking attack by more adversaries. “General Tusk of Naechis, son of Osa Tusk, the Black Wolf of Crylalt, please may I introduce Constrincal Qualens Sarevir, Officer of the Roaman Republic and son of Vain Varbal Qualens Juctor, former Consul of Roam and Scion of Qualens.” “May your gods smile upon our meeting,” nodded Tusk solemnly from his horse. “And each after, General Tusk,” saluted Constrincal. He pressed his knee into his horse’s flank, and it lifted its front leg up in a crude salute of its own that drew a slightly broader smile of appreciation from the Naechisian. “May I, in turn, introduce my god-brother and fellow Officer, Fawning Parytal Sarevir Qualens, son of my dear half-father Fawning Pampal Sarevir Voriel, former Consul of Roam.” The two were obviously related, though Strinc was generally leaner, with even the sculpted musculature of his electrum-leaf breastplate, flared out at his hips to allow for comfortable control of his steed, emphasising litheness, while Parytal’s trunk was thicker under his red tunic, making him look like a sour plum. Both of their hair was a dirty blonde with ragged straight edges like straw, but Constrincal somehow wore his, and his dark, pinched eyebrows, better than his younger god-brother, who was now, as ever, tilting his chin down slightly towards his chest and looking up from under them. “Hail, General Tusk,” Parytal saluted without the theatrics, his voice ragged as if tired after making the long journey from its birthplace in the back of his throat. “Welcome to Roam.” “Hail, Officer Parytal,” Tusk held up a fist, a salute Don was unfamiliar with. “Though I’m not convinced I’ll ever actually make it up to Roam if every Roaman encounter is going to list all of their names and titles, and the names and the titles of all their relatives and friends and pets.” Parytal glanced between Tusk, Don and Strinc, at a loss as to how to respond. “The course would have been less painful, I assure you,” said Constrincal, “if the Juctors, renowned for their god-given gifts for order and procedure, could manage something so simple as riding down a road and back without tripping over themselves.” “In defence of the Juctors,” Tusk smiled, his teeth bright against his dark, broad lips and beard, “if riding down a road and back takes your grandfather the better part of a day, I reckon the process would have been quite painful for everyone, regardless.” Don was quite pleased to see Strinc and Parytal over Tusk’s unorthodox diplomatic jabs rather than having to fend them off himself for once. “What are the god-given gifts of the Qualens, if you don’t mind my asking?” “Agriculture, mostly,” Strinc said proudly, though he had probably never stepped in a field in his life except perhaps to piss. “My great ancestor is the god of fertility, plenty and wealth, and his march across the heavens heralds the turn of the seasons, and with them the renewal of life through the generations.” “The sons of Sarevir are the sword and shield of Roam,” announced Parytal unbidden, with the cadence of a man reciting. “Our blood runs thick and hot. We stand on guard, never complacent in peace nor hesitant in war.” “I’m well aware of the fervour of Sarevirs,” Tusk nodded deliberately. Don braced for a renewal of hostilities regarding the general’s father, but – apart from a flash in his eyes so brief that Don could almost have been fooled into thinking that he had imagined it – the Naechisian restrained himself. “The cavalry of Moody Machyal – led by his son Proud Machyal, I believe – earned the highest admiration of my father’s Mughannean Outriders in Crylalt, which is to say that they sometimes came close to catching them.” “And now Proud Machyal is the Governor of all Crylalt,” said Parytal, “and those Mughannean mercenaries answer to him.” Don laughed at the tone deafness of Parytal’s pride, and couldn’t resist tugging it out a little further for all to see. “Proud Machyal first led those mercs in Crylalt decisively beneath the walls of Delebram, where they outflanked Strinc’s father Vain Varbal, leaving your grandfather Vain Prellal hopeless and forcing his surrender.” “We were only children then,” Strinc said, refusing to be drawn, “if we were born at all. The wounds of that war are not ours to pick at, Don. Is it not Roaman law that a man is not to be judged for the crimes of his father?” “So they say,” Don said, catching sight of the approaching lines of mounted Consular Guardsmen shielding his own father from view, holding their ceremonial spears butt end up to indicate the peaceful intentions of their excursion. “Nor for those of his brother, so they say.” “Hopefully,” Tusk said, sitting up straighter in his horse as the formation approached, his expression grappling with some associated response to the spectacle, “somebody can then explain to me the full purpose of my invitation here.” The infantry around them snapped to attention and hailed the approach of Don’s father, the Consul, and Patriarch of Juctor, Coughy Pagnal Juctor, son of Coughy Ambyal Juctor Sarevir and Pagnal Juctor-Amussal, as announced by the pompous herald on his white horse that cantered ahead of them. The Consular Guardsmen fanned out to form a tunnel around the three Officers and General Tusk, and Coughy Pagnal approached them with a concentrated calm which Don could see right through. His father looked nearer thirty than his forty-two years, his straight brown hair parted precisely without a hint of thinning – perhaps the only concession to his true years was the loosening of his neck, which was beginning to undermine the strong, square jaw that Don still remembered him having in his mind’s eye. His nose was straight like Oti’s from the front, but flattened in profile, betraying his youthful rebellious phase as a fist-fighter which was usually swept under the threshes with his other, distinguished scars from serving as an Officer during the war in Crylalt. He wore the simple, white toga of a peacetime Consul, trimmed in gold for his rank and orange for his family, and fastened with a thick, golden, braided rope to represent the weight of his Consular duties. He held a golden sceptre topped with an eagle’s talons clutching a fiery orange garnet to symbolise his role as Patriarch of Juctor. Half a step behind, Vain Prellal Qualens Juctor winced as he rode up alongside the Consul, wearing a toga identical but for rich green trim in place of the orange. As Patriarch and Conduit of Qualens, he wielded a golden sceptre like two intertwined vines ensconcing an emerald and a humble wreath of laurel atop his head. His wavy hair was more dark steel than white despite his four-and-sixty years, and his face was more bagged than wrinkled, without having gone to fat – the largest pockets say an inch below his eyes as if his eyeballs, barely visible through his always-squinting eyes, sometimes sank down between his skin and cheekbones to rest there. Don did not know if the civic name Vain had originated with Prellal or been inherited from an ancestor, but could see little through the ravages of age that the Patriarch of Qualens could once have been proud of. Another of his grandsons, the nineteen year-old Officer Pagnal Qualens, Vain Prellal’s Juctor half-daughter’s son by two Qualens husbands currently serving in the Provinces as Well Captains, attended him in somewhat less ornate green and bronze armour than Constrincal’s – or indeed than Don’s own intricate orange heirloom. Tusk waited patiently through the herald’s introductions, his right eye twinkling slightly at each new name and title – particularly the Conduit of Qualens, a position apparently new to him, denoting the oldest living Familial man, who took on certain religious duties requiring his presence on Roam. The hard parts of Tusk’s face unpinched, however, when the two final riders of the welcome party came round the Patriarch into view. Don often had trouble telling between the dark-skinned peoples like Mughanneans and Pricians, but with both Tusk brothers in sight, their differences were evident. Oba was several shades paler than Ife, with a taller head shaven clean to emphasise the caramel shine of his unapologetic forehead. He wore a plain white toga and a hopeful, placating smile, his carob eyes nervously searching those of his estranged brother. Don could see the same broad-shouldered frame lurking beneath Oba’s toga and tunic as Ife’s, but bereft of the hard-won, dense musculature which gave the younger brother the sense of a hunched bull. Oba’s slender left was lightly clutching the right of his wife, Cacy Qualens, daughter of Vain Prellal, her green woollen stola pooling and spilling over her horse delicately. Her face was modestly obscured by a semi-transparent veil weighed down with pearlescent seashells to just under her nose and around to her jaw either side of her pursed little mouth, her chin a slightly softer replica of her father’s tight-lipped, taut original. Her strawberry blonde hair peeked out of the side of her headscarf in immaculate braids, an ornate contortion of which must have accounted for the tall, rounded peak of her head. She was slightly built yet pleasingly curved to Don’s eye, despite her having passed the thirty years that Roamans traditionally considered the cut-off point for sexual attraction (and consequently, the upper limit of legal marriage). Like Don’s sister Cortisy, Cacy had been a Wife of Roam at just fourteen, when the deteriorating tyrant Moody Machyal had taken her as a wife in his seventh and final year as Consul before his sudden and welcome death, largely to placate the Qualens family that he had humiliated at Delebram. Like Cortisy, Cacy wore a small, silver pendant of the sun with rippled rays and closed eyes to forever commemorate that honourable position, the second highest (behind the rarer Mother of Roam) that a woman Roaman could hope to achieve, though the meaning behind the symbolism of the pendant was lost to the centuries. Don’s mother was in fact thrice Wife of Roam, to three different Consuls, and wore an identical pendant, but managed to avoid occasions such as these through a carefully nurtured fear of horses. The herald finished his length introductions and all of the male Roamans present – and Oba Tusk – threw their right hand straight up and outwards in a salute, shouting “Hail!” in close unison as a ritual salute. Coughy Pagnal let his horse an extra step towards Tusk, hoping to establish a connection beyond the formalities in what struck Don as a slightly predictable manner. “General Tusk, may I apologise on the behalf of the Senate and the People of Roam for the misunderstandings which have led up to this moment, and assure you personally that you are most welcome on Roam under my protection, that of my family, and that of my co-Consul Hessal Varagy.” “No apology is necessary, Consul Juctor,” Tusk said, not entirely convincingly. “Coughy Pagnal, please” insisted Don’s father. “I want us to be able to talk as friends, not offices.” Tusk glanced between the Consul and his brother Oba for an instant. “I hope to be able to do so too, Coughy Pagnal,” he said. “Ife.” “Good,” smiled Don’s father, his horse wheeling slightly. “And let me assure you that at no point here I felt that the protection of your family was in doubt, despite appearances. I have never felt less in danger.” Don felt his pulse flash, but tamped it down. “In fact, I learned much from my… unusual approach to Roam that I feel would have evaded me if I had not been subject to such misunderstandings, so would ask that you show mercy to those who might have been in part responsible for them, as a favour to me, and a gesture of our continued friendship.” Vain Prellal, who was actually Don’s second or third cousin if not related more closely by some other route, caught his eye, his eyebrow raising curiously. Don returned a slight shrug with one shoulder, watching the calculations and emotions pass under his own father’s expression. “Of course, Ife,” he said. “As far as I am concerned, out story starts here.” ' ' Category:Chapter Category:Ife POV Chapter Category:Donimal POV Chapter